Rutherford Birchard Hayes was, by all accounts, an intelligent and honest man who made his way to the White House in the most controversial fashion of any President until George W. Bush. Despite his personal integrity, his reputation from historians has taken a beating.

Hayes is viewed as the man who gave up on the idea of Federal enforcement of civil rights for blacks in the South for a period that lasted past World War II. He accomplished little in his one term as he faced a Congress that was hostile toward him. That was just the members of his own party. The Democrats in Congress hated him more.

Hans L. Trefousse, one of the foremost experts on the Reconstruction Era, tries to do his part to rehabilitate Hayes’ image. However, Trefousse did a better job making Andrew Johnson look like a racist monster, than he does in making Rutherford Hayes look like an underappreciated Chief Executive.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born on October 4, 1822 in Delaware. Delaware, Ohio, that is. His father died before he was born. (Three presidents were born after their fathers had died: Andrew Jackson, Hayes, and Bill Clinton.) Hayes’ uncle, Sardis Birchard, helped raise young Rutherford along with his mother, Sophia.

From an early age, Sardis Birchard exposed to young Rutherford to classic works of literature and taught him Latin and Greek. Hayes graduated from Kenyon College in 1842, and later would attend Harvard Law School. Hayes returned home to Ohio and started a law practice in Cincinnati.

In 1852, Hayes married Lucy Webb, who was the love of his life. The two of them had eight children together and would be married for 37 years. Lucy had graduated from what is now Ohio Wesleyan University, and would be the first First Lady to have a college degree.

Hayes’ law practice was successful and he became well known in political circles. When the Republican Party began in 1856, Hayes joined it immediately. Already leaning toward the side of abolition, Lucy’s strong religious beliefs pushed Rutherford firmly into that camp.

When the Civil War began, Hayes signed up for the Army. Hayes took command of a group of Northern Ohio volunteers, and, after a lot of reading up on military affairs, became a respected commander in the field. In the early part of the war, Hayes saw action in West Virginia. He was wounded in a battle that was a preliminary to the bloodbath of Antietam (about 22,000 people died on one day in that battle, the most casualties on any one day in U.S. history.)

Hayes returned to the battlefield in December of 1862 and was now a Brigadier General. Another future President, William McKinley, was under Hayes’ command.

Even before Hayes left the Army, the voters of Ohio elected him to the House of Representatives. He finally took office in December of 1865. Hayes would be a strong supporter of Civil Rights and a vehement opponent of President Andrew Johnson. Hayes resigned his seat in July of 1867 to run for governor of Ohio.

Hayes barely won the election as governor, but the Democrats controlled both houses of the Ohio Legislature. This would prove to be a problem as the governor of Ohio had no veto power at the time. With little to do the first two years except give speeches and make suggestions that no one heeded, Hayes became more involved with Republican politics at the national level.

In 1870, Hayes won a second two-year term, eking out a win by a little over 7500 votes. Hayes toyed with the idea of a Senate run in 1872, but decided against it, thinking it better to retire from politics with his reputation unsullied.

Hayes could not stay away. Or, perhaps, the Ohio Republican Party could not stay away from Hayes. In 1875, Hayes ran for a third term as Governor of Ohio. He won and took a Republican majority into both houses of the Legislature with him. Hayes was now discussed as Presidential material.

For much of the American history, Ohio has been a popular place to find Presidential candidates. The state is both Midwest and East. It is both industrial and agricultural. And, it has always had a healthy number of electoral votes.

Maine Senator James Blaine was the favorite for the nomination going into the Republican Convention. Cincinnati would be the site.

Blaine was well-known, but he had his enemies within the party. The anti-Blaine forces managed to keep the “plumed knight of the Senate” (as some called Blaine) from ever gaining a majority of the delegates. On the seventh ballot, the anti-Blaine forces coalesced around Hayes and got him the nomination. William Wheeler of New York was nominated as Vice President. The Democrats nominated New York Governor Samuel Tilden for President and Indiana Governor Thomas Hendricks for Vice President.

1876 was expected to be a Democratic year. Tilden was known as an honest, reform-minded candidate. The country was in the midst of a terrible economic crisis. The Republicans had held a 199-88 majority in the House in 1873. After the 1875 election, the Democrats held a 182-103 majority.

Hayes did not expect to win and there was not much he could do personally to help himself. 1876 was still a time when it was considered unseemly for candidates to personally go out and campaign. It would all be a matter of which party could find ways to get as many people to the polls. Or, in the case of the Democrats in the South, how many black voters they could keep away through intimidation or legal shenanigans.

When the results came out on Election Day, there was no clear winner. The New York Times (then a distinctly Republican leaning publication) reported the results as 184 electoral votes for Tilden and 181 for Hayes. 185 was the magic number. There was one state that had not yet been decided. It was … wait for it … Florida! (Florida had just four electoral votes in that era.)

But, the 181 total for Hayes was not entirely clear. Aside from Florida not reporting, there were conflicting returns from Louisiana and South Carolina. Also, there was one elector in Oregon that was being contested. The New York Times had already given Louisiana, South Carolina, and the lone vote from Oregon to Hayes. However, nobody knew which set of returns was correct. Tilden was going to prevail in the popular vote regardless.

In the end, all the disputed states ended up sending in TWO sets of electoral ballots. If Congress would count the Democratic votes (and not even all of them), Tilden would win. If Congress counted all the Republican votes, Hayes would win.

The Constitution stipulates that electoral votes are to be counted in front of a joint session of Congress with the President of the Senate presiding. But, there was no provision to handle a disputed set of returns. The House was in control of the Democrats and the Senate was controlled by Republicans. The President of the Senate was Republican Senator Thomas Ferry of Michigan, who was the President Pro Tem. (Vice President Henry Wilson had passed away in 1874.)

There were negotiations back and forth between the Democrats and Republicans about how to count the votes. In January of 1877, a joint committee recommended the establishment of special panel to look at the disputed returns. It would consist of 15 people, five from the Senate, five from the House, and five from the Supreme Court. The Senators would be three Republicans and two Democrats and the Representatives would be three Democrats and two Republicans. The Supreme Court justices would hold the balance as there would be two Democrats, two Republicans, and one independent, David Davis.

Davis was from Illinois. The legislature there, controlled by Democrats, tried to buy off Davis by electing him to a vacant Senate seat for Illinois. Davis responded to this by resigning his seat on the Supreme Court. The Democrats had to settle for a Republican justice, Joseph Bradley. Democrats thought Bradley was the least partisan member of the Supreme Court left to choose.

As Congress counted the votes, (I’ve watched the process on C-SPAN and it is scintillating action), when the first set of disputed results came up, Florida’s, the matter was referred to the special Electoral Commission (as it was so called). The Commission voted along partisan lines 8-7 to approve the Republican returns. This was the case in all the disputed results. The count was not finished until 4:10 a.m. on March 2, 1877, less than two full days before the new President would be inaugurated. (Congress would quickly get to work to pass a new law to handle situations like this. It took only 10 years and basically stated that whichever set of returns is approved by the governor of a state counts.)

Outgoing President Grant had Hayes secretly sworn in as President in the White House on March 3. Since March 4 was a Sunday, the public ceremony would not be until March 5. Grant did not wish to risk Democrats disrupting the swearing in or getting some sort of injunction to prevent it.

Hayes, who did not like the way the matter was handled, nevertheless accepted the result. He believed that if the Southern Democrats had not intimidated black voters and illegally suppressed the turnout, he would have won easily. But, Hayes was branded “His Fraudulency” and “Old 8 to 7” in the press.

One of the first fallouts from the election was the removal of Federal troops from Louisiana, which allowed the Democrats to reclaim the political machinery of the state. The military reconstruction of the South was over. Any hope that African Americans had in those states of achieving any semblance of equality would have to be deferred for generations.

Hayes also named a Southerner to his Cabinet. David Key of Tennessee became Postmaster General. Historians still dispute if these two events were part of a deal struck by the Republicans to allow the election of Hayes. Trefousse believes that the true victor of the 1876 election will never be known. There was too much corruption on both sides.

The first two years for Hayes were extremely rocky. Democrats wanted to hold hearings into the election results, with the possible aim of reversing the result. The Republican in charge of counting the votes in Louisiana was prosecuted for fraud. Hayes remarked that he felt that the man would not have charged with any crime if he had just said that the Democrats had won.

Hayes tried to take on the cause of civil service reform as one of his first tasks. The first Federal job Hayes went after was Collector of the Port of New York. The man in charge there was Chester Arthur, an ally of powerful New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, who wanted no part of civil service reform.

Following the recommendations of a report by a commission looking into the subject, Hayes ordered Arthur and two other Conkling allies to resign. All three men refused to resign, so Hayes suspended them. Theodore Roosevelt, father of the future President, replaced Arthur. Fewer than six months on the job, Hayes had managed to alienate himself from one of the most powerful men in his own party in Conkling.

While the tempest over the Port of New York was brewing, Hayes faced another major domestic problem: railroad strikes. In July, railroad workers throughout the country went on strike. In some areas, miners joined the strike. Riots sprung up throughout the country. Hayes called in Federal troops to restore order, and, ultimately, get the trains running again.

Before Hayes sent his annual message to Congress, he had already used Federal force to support corporate interests, but withheld Federal force to uphold civil rights. These two actions probably accounted for his recent drop in historians’ rankings of Presidents.

Rutherford and Lucy Hayes did manage to make the White House one of the livelier places in Washington for social gatherings, despite the fact that Lucy did not allow alcohol to be served in her home. She was dubbed “Lemonade Lucy.” The Hayes family were not prudes. They just did not drink alcohol.

In 1878, Argentina and Paraguay turned to Hayes to arbitrate a dispute between the two countries over the Gran Chaco region that bordered the two countries. Paraguay had been at war from 1864 through 1870 against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. The conflict was known as the War of the Triple Alliance. Paraguay suffered staggering losses in the conflict, with about 300,000 people (including civilians) killed. It is estimated that 90% of all adult males in Paraguay died in the war.

An area between two rivers, the Rio Verde and the Rio Pilcomayo was still in dispute between Argentina and Paraguay. Hayes decided to give the territory to Paraguay. The reason for this decision is still unclear. But, Paraguay was so pleased with the decision that a town was named in honor of Hayes, called Villa Hayes, and later an entire department (province) of Paraguay was named Presidente Hayes.

Hayes accomplished little else in office to overcome the controversy that surrounded his election. He had already promised before the election not to run for a second term. Hayes was a lame duck with the stain of fraud hanging over him. It was not a recipe for success.

Trefousse wants to make the point that Hayes was not a dishonest man. And, by all accounts, Hayes was one of the more honorable politicians around in one of the most corrupt eras in American politics. However, Hayes did not fully exercise all the powers of the Presidency. Perhaps he could not so because of political realities.

Hayes did leave office with the United States in better shape than he found it. The economic crisis of the Panic of 1873 had dissipated and Hayes had refused to solve the problem by simply printing more money. The United States had become a more important player on the world stage.

But, if you were a black citizen in the South, your situation would have gotten worse. The Federal government was not in the civil rights business anymore.

Hayes spent his retirement back in Ohio. He served on the Board of Trustees for Ohio State University, which opened when he was governor. He also spent time defending his record as President and his method of election. Hayes loved to point out that the Democratic Party did not renominate Tilden for the Presidency. (Nor would the Democrats renominate Al Gore in 2004.)

Rutherford Hayes passed away on January 17, 1893 in Fremont, Ohio, just six months after his wife Lucy passed away. His last words expressed happiness over going to rejoin her.

Overall, Rutherford Hayes was a good man who drew a bad hand as President. He was thrust into a political world seething with corruption, racial violence, and economic turmoil. Trefousse feels that Hayes did not get his due. Hayes may not have wanted to pull Federal troops from protecting blacks in the South, but, he had little choice in the matter. Nevertheless, the fact remains that under Hayes much of the gains in civil rights for African Americans gained from the Civil War disappeared for about 90 years.

At least the Election of 1876 and the trauma that the country went through ensured that the United States would never have to suffer from a questionable election result ever again. Or so I thought in 1999.

Other stuff: Rutherford Hayes’ birthplace in Delaware, Ohio was demolished in the 19th Century. He is buried in Fremont, Ohio. His grave is on the site of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center. The library on site has an extensive genealogical collection. Hayes was an avid genealogist himself.

Americans have never been shy about making their military heroes Presidents. They have ranged from the great (George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt) to pretty darn good (Andrew Jackson and Dwight Eisenhower) to the quickly dead (William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor).

Ulysses S. Grant was undoubtedly one of America’s greatest generals, leading the Union Army to a victory in the nation’s bloodiest conflict, the Civil War. As a President, Grant is much harder to read. Back in 2000, historians ranked him #33. But, by 2009, Grant had risen ten spots in the rankings.

What had happened to Grant’s reputation in that time to pull him out of Herbert Hoover and Millard Fillmore territory? Grant’s Presidency was rife with scandals, including one where he had to dump his Vice President when running for re-election, only to replace him with a man who was caught up in the same scandal.

Josiah Bunting III, who served in the Army and also worked at the Virginia Military Institute as well as West Point in addition to writing novels, tries to present the case that Grant’s Presidency was more than just a series of scandals. He presents Grant as a leader, who while a bit too keen to delegate work to people who were not competent or honest, but also as a strong supporter of civil rights for the newly freed slaves. Grant also wins praise from Bunting for trying (although ultimately unsuccessfully) to reform government policy toward Native Americans.

Was Grant as good of a President as he was a general? No. But was he the 19th Century’s answer to Richard Nixon? No, far from that. Grant was not a paranoid man. He was not personally corrupt. He firmly believed he was always in the right. And, he never forgot his friends. Unfortunately, Grant could have benefited from having a higher class of friends.

Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant on April 27, 1822 in Point Pleasant, Ohio. When he was 17, his father, Jesse, managed to get him a nomination to West Point. The Congressman writing the nomination, Thomas Hamer, thought Jesse’s son bore his mother’s maiden name as his middle name. So, Hamer nominated Ulysses Simpson Grant for an appoint to the United States Military Academy. Grant decided to stick with this name.

Grant’s West Point class had only 39 graduates. Grant ranked 21st in his class. He served as a quartermaster at the Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. But, world events thrust Grant into much different duty.

The border between the United States and Mexico in Texas was becoming subject of a heated dispute between the two countries. Grant joined what became known as the Army of Observation, under the command of General Zachary Taylor. This group ultimately forced the start of the Mexican War by engaging Mexican forces in a disputed territory.

Grant enjoyed serving under Taylor. He liked Taylor’s “Rough and Ready” approach. Grant believed it was best to lead soldiers not by wearing fancy dress, but rather by just getting the job done. Grant would always be known for eschewing dress uniforms when he could. Grant won plaudits for his service during the war.

When the war was over, Grant married Julia Dent in 1848. He was soon dispatched to the West Coast as the population there boomed because of the California Gold Rush. During his long absences from Julia, Grant began to develop a drinking problem. Whether or not Grant was an alcoholic cannot be determined, but, Grant would be branded throughout his life as a drunkard by his enemies.

Regardless, Grant’s drinking caused him to resign his Army commission in 1854. He returned home to Jesse and his growing family in the St. Louis area. After a succession of dead-end jobs, Grant and his family moved to Galena, Illinois in 1860

And, as we should know, the Civil War began in April of 1861. Grant offered his services to the Governor of Illinois. He was named a colonel of a volunteer regiment. Then, he quickly moved up to brigadier general. In August of 1861, Grant was given command of all Union troops in Southern Illinois. When the Confederate Army took over the city of Columbus, Kentucky, Grant was ordered to retake the city.

Grant’s men engaged the Confederates across the river from Columbus in the town of Belmont, Missouri. The Union won a rousing success. Grant was supposedly the last man to leave the battlefield.

Now, the Union Army was taking aim on Confederate defenses in the Ohio Valley. In the battle for Fort Donelson, Grant faced an old friend of his Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner. Buckner realized that his men were outnumbered and sent a message asking Grant for what his conditions for surrender would be. Grant famously replied, “No terms except immediate and unconditional surrender can be accepted.” From then on, many believed that U.S. Grant stood for “Unconditional Surrender Grant.”

Grant’s victories were not for the faint of heart. He knew that numbers were on his side. Grant was denounced by his opponents as a “butcher.” However, President Lincoln firmly believed in Grant. As Lincoln reportedly said, “I can’t spare this man. He fights.” Grant rose to the rank of Lieutenant General, the first man to hold that title since George Washington.

Despite the high casualty rates, Grant’s men were extremely loyal to him. Grant did not enjoy the death toll, but, according to Bunting, Grant was certain that he was in the right. And Grant believed in “the certainty of victory.” Grant would push forward all the time. He would make the South pay for their actions.

When Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomatox Court House, Grant no longer wished for unconditional surrender. Grant asked that Lee’s men simply surrender their arms and agree not to fight again. Lee’s men could then go home and try to rebuild their lives. Grant became General of the Army of the United States.

Lincoln had asked Grant and his wife to go with him to Ford’s Theater on that fateful April 14 of 1865. Grant declined, mostly because Julia did not wish to spend a night with Mary Todd Lincoln. After Lincoln’s death, Vice President Andrew Johnson took over the role of bringing the country back together.

The next four years would nearly ruin the nation again. Johnson wished to immediately bring the Southern States back into the Union with full voting rights in Congress. Johnson, although a firmly believer in abolition, had no desire to see the freed slaves attain any other basic civil rights. Republicans in Congress resisted Johnson at every turn. The Reconstruction of the United States would not be accomplished only by the powers of persuasion. It would take the United States Army.

Johnson opposed the 14th Amendment, which granted full citizenship to anyone born on United States soil. Grant supported it. Johnson wished to speak out against it, along with many other Radical Republican measures in Congress on a speaking tour through the Midwest by train. Grant came along for moral support, but quickly tried to distance himself from Johnson, who was often heckled by crowds, and Johnson would respond in kind.

In 1868, matters between Congress and President Johnson came to a head with the Tenure of Office Act. This act made it illegal for the President to remove from office without Congressional approval. Johnson wished to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (who was leaking information to the Radicals) and replace him with Grant. At first, Grant accepted the job, but, realizing that he had a chance to become President later in the year, declined. Eventually, Stanton was replaced. The House impeached Johnson and he escaped conviction by one vote.

The Presidential Election of 1868 was perfectly set up for Ulysses Grant. No one else in the country had the stature to take over. Grant won the nomination without any opposition. Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax was named as Grant’s running mate.

The Democrats nominated former New York Governor Horatio Seymour. Seymour was no match for the hugely popular Grant. With much of the white Democratic vote in the South suppressed by the Army, Grant won by a 214-80 margin in the Electoral Vote and had 52.7% of the popular vote.

While everyone knew of Grant’s military heroics, very little was known about how he would govern. Not many people seemed to care too much about that at the time.

Grant would not reveal the names of his choices for Cabinet posts until he forwarded them on to the Senate. Some of his choices were curious. For example, he chose an Ohio friend, Elihu Washburne for Secretary of State. But, Washburne resigned the post after 12 days to become Minister to France. Grant felt that Washburne would be considered a more prestigious emissary with “former Secretary of State” on his resumé. Hamilton Fish would replace Washburne for the next eight years.

Grant’s military chief of staff, John Rawlins, was supposed to head up the Army in the Southwest, but Rawlins told Grant that he would rather be Secretary of War. And Rawlins got the job. But, he died in September of 1869 of tuberculosis.

A quiet, but wealthy campaign contributor from Philadelphia, Adolph Borie, became Secretary of the Navy. However, Borie did not know anything about naval affairs. Grant just thought he would like the job. Borie resigned the position in June of 1869.

Grant also wanted to pick financier Alexander Stewart to be Secretary of the Treasury. However, Stewart’s vast wealth and many entanglements with Federal funds, made the Senate balk at his nomination. Grant withdrew Stewart and nominated George Boutwell, one of the House managers for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

Soon after taking office, Grant decided to tackle the issue of the national debt, which had ballooned to nearly $3 billion (about $46 trillion in today’s money, almost four times today’s national debt.) Grant had Congress pass a law requiring that the debt be repaid with gold and not paper money. Grant wished to avoid inflation at all costs.

The increased demand for gold led two New York speculators, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, to try to corner the gold market. With inside knowledge from one of Grant’s brothers-in-law, the two men persuaded the Treasury to delay public sales of gold. Gould would buy large sums of gold, which served to drive up the price. The idea would be that when people tried to redeem their greenbacks for gold, they would reap even more money. The whole plan fell apart though when the Treasury sold a large amount of gold earlier than expected, which sent prices plummeting. Many people were ruined, although Gould and Fisk were not, and neither faced any criminal prosecution.

Grant’s response to this crisis gave people the impression that he was in the pocket of Wall Street, and likely in over his head in the job of President. Scandals would be a constant presence during Grant’s Administration.

Besides the national debt, one of the major crises for Grant was dealing with the problem of how to bring back the Southern states into the Union. Although the slaves were free, Southerners showed no inclination of allowing the freed slaves to vote. Methods ranging from legal chicanery (such as literacy tests) to blatant violence (from groups like the Ku Klux Klan) were employed to keep African-Americans from voting.

Grant was not afraid to use Federal force to maintain order and uphold civil rights. Under Grant’s watch, the Fifteenth Amendment, which explicitly granted the franchise to all adult male citizens regardless of race, was adopted. Grant also created the Justice Department, headed by the Attorney General, to enforce civil rights laws. Prior to 1871, the Attorney General was mostly a glorified White House counsel. Grant made the position into one of the most powerful jobs in the country. Nevertheless, Grant’s desire to use Federal force to enforce black voting rights in the South was often more of a political calculation than a moral one. Bunting admits that Grant would time Federal activities in the South to help with elections in various parts of the country.

Toward the end of Grant’s first term, a major scandal shook up his Administration. It would be known as the Credit Mobilier Scandal. Credit Mobilier was a construction company set up by the Union Pacific railway. Several members of Congress had taken bribes, usually in the form of stock, to give the Union Pacific favorable votes in Congress. Vice President Colfax was caught up in the scandal and dropped from the ticket in 1872.

The Democrats did not run an opponent against Grant in 1872. Instead, an odd coalition of government reformers who were opposed to the rampant use of political patronage jobs, as well as Northerners who objected to the continuation of military Reconstruction in the South, formed a group called the Liberal Republicans. They nominated newspaper publisher Horace Greeley.

Greeley had never held elective office before. His campaign never got very far as he proved to be a rather unusual character. He always wore a long coat and carried an umbrella regardless of the weather.

The next four years for Grant would bring about even more scandal. His new Vice President, Henry Wilson, turned out to also be involved in the Credit Mobilier scandal. However, he passed away in 1874, before any final determination of his complicity.

In 1873, Congress passed a law doubling the President’s salary to $50,000. That did not bother people. What bothered people was that Congress voted itself a raise and made it retroactive for two years. And members of Congress would get a $5,000 bonus on top of that. Public opposition forced the repeal of this pay raise (but not Grant’s) in 1874.

Grant’s personal secretary had to resign in connection in a tax evasion scheme involving distillers. The Secretary of War extorted money to allow a trading post to stay open. The Attorney General took a bribe to stop the prosecution of a case against a customs house.

Adding to all this was a major financial crisis: the Panic of 1873. This crisis came about because of speculation in the railroad industry. Those stocks became over-valued and then collapsed in price. Banks began to fail. Unemployment shot up. Wages declined. Congress wanted to relieve the credit crisis by allowing more greenbacks into circulation. But, Grant vetoed the measure, keeping in line with his strong belief in the gold standard, as well as a fear of inflation. Although it did take time (until 1879 when Grant was out of office), the economy did right itself.

It might seem that Grant did little right. Bunting does not believe that to be the case. He believes that the domestic ills were the result of Grant’s military background and his belief that he could delegate authority correctly.

Bunting also gives Grant credit for foreign policy successes. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish negotiated a major treaty with Great Britain over a dispute that originally centered on a claim that the United States had against the British for helping the Confederate Navy build a steamer called the Alabama. Fish initially received monetary remuneration from Britain, but Senate Foreign Relations Chair Charles Sumner declared that to be inadequate. Sumner believed the Alabama extended the Civil War for two years. Sumner wanted Canada as payback.

Fish ultimately got the British (and Sumner) to come to an agreement to have the matter sent to binding arbitration. Fish would also negotiate a sticky border dispute between the U.S. and Canada in the newly acquired Alaska Territory.

Bunting makes a case that Grant had the most humane policy toward Native Americans of any President. Grant wanted to smooth relations between the various Native American nations and the United States. He wanted to establish schools. He appointed Native Americans to administer the programs. Grant wanted to complete Jefferson’s dream of making the original inhabitants of the United States Americans on equal standing with those who came later.

Sadly, this was not to be. Toward the end of Grant’s administration in 1876, when an Army Cavalry regiment under the command of Colonel George Armstrong Custer, was wiped out by a Lakota-Cheyenne force at the Little Bighorn River. Public opinion no longer favored giving the Native Americans any more aid.

After leaving the White House, Ulysses and Julia Grant took a tour of Europe that lasted over two years. They were celebrities wherever they went, but, to Grant’s disappointment, he was mostly honored as a general, not a President. He came back to the United States hoping to reenter the political fray in 1880 as a candidate for President.

The Republican Convention could not decide between Grant and James Blaine of Maine. James Garfield was nominated as a compromise choice. Grant had to leave the arena.

Unfortunately, a bad investment left Grant nearly penniless. Wealthy benefactors helped out as much as they could. Around this time, Grant developed a sharp pain in his throat. It turned out to be throat cancer.

With little time to live, Grant opted to sign with a publisher to write his memoirs. Despite being in tremendous pain, Grant produced a two-volume work. He finished writing the manuscript on July 18, 1885. He died on July 23, 1885 in Mount McGregor, New York. (Grant is the only President known to have died from cancer.) The memoirs earned his estate over $450,000 in royalties.

Bunting’s book does not make the most persuasive case that Grant was anything but a mediocre to terrible President. Grant should be credited for his strong stance on civil rights and his relatively enlightened attitude toward Native Americans. Ulysses S. Grant as President probably seemed like a good idea at the time for the United States. But, the United States did not have the brilliant military strategist as President. Instead, the country got the ne’er-do-well who could not hold a job before the Civil War. We all have some job that we are best suited for. For Ulysses S. Grant, that job was in the military, not in civilian life.

Other stuff: Grant was 46 years old at the time of his inauguration, making him the youngest man to hold the office at the time. Vice President Schuyler Colfax was just 45.

If you mention the name William Henry Harrison to most people, the initial reaction will be “I don’t know anyone by that name.” So, after you get past the people who are completely ignorant of the man, you might get the reaction of “Oh, the guy who died after a month in office as President.” And after you get past those people, you get the people who say, “Wasn’t his nickname ‘Tippecanoe’?” Then you run into someone who is a direct descendant of Tecumseh, and you get punched in the face.

Finding a biography of William Henry Harrison was not an easy task. The book I found was published in 1939. And, it goes on for 343 pages, not counting the end notes, bibliography, and index. And Harrison does not get elected President until page 329. There was a lot to slog through. In the end, I learned that perhaps one reason people do not write full-length biographies of William Henry Harrison is that is he was not very interesting.

Freeman Cleaves, who wrote mostly about the Civil War, penned a lengthy book that utters nary a bad word about William Henry Harrison. Either Harrison was beyond reproach, or he was incredibly boring. You could decide if you read the book, but you do not have to. I have read it for you as a public service. This public service does not extend to telling you if William Henry Harrison was a good person. But, I do know a lot about Indiana in the early 19th Century now.

The life of William Henry Harrison is somewhat interesting. It is not 343 pages worth of interest, but it is a little more interesting than reading about Millard Fillmore.

William Henry Harrison was the youngest child of Benjamin Harrison V, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Elizabeth Bassett. He was born on February 9, 1773 on the Berkeley Plantation in what is now Charles City, Virginia.

When he was 14, Harrison went off to Hampden-Sydney College. But, after two years, Harrison left when the college changed its religious affiliation from Episcopalian to Methodist.

Harrison then was going to try his hand at medicine and enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, but he dropped out because his family told him that there was not enough money for him to stay in school. So, Harrison decided to join the Army. He received a commission as an ensign in the Army in 1791.

The United States Army was not a prestigious institution at the time. The country feared a large standing army. Almost all of the forces were stationed in what was then called the Northwest Territory (think Big Ten Conference.) The Army posted Harrison to a fort outside of Cincinnati.

Harrison quickly moved up the ranks. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Fallen Timbers (near Toledo) in 1794. This battle, along with the subsequent Treaty of Greenville (negotiated by Harrison) brought some peace between American settlers and a confederation of Great Lakes area Indian nations.

In 1795, Harrison married Anna Symmes, daughter of a prominent judge in Ohio. They would have 10 children together, nine of whom lived to adulthood.

Harrison settled down in 1797 and was appointed to the job of Secretary of the Northwest Territory. Two years later, Harrison won the election for the territory’s non-voting delegate in Congress. This job is similar to positions today held by people from exotic places like Guam and the District of Columbia.

In 1801, outgoing President John Adams appointed Harrison as the first territorial governor for the new territory of Indiana. Harrison moved his family to the bustling metropolis of Vincennes, the capital city.

Harrison tried to attract settlers to Indiana. He had two approaches. One was to relax prohibitions on slavery and indentured servitude in the territory. The other was to make sure that some of the Indian tribes that did not sign the Treaty of Greenville did not make any trouble.

By 1809, the Indiana Territory was allowed to choose its own legislature. This body had a pro-abolition majority that voted to prohibit slavery in the territory. In that same year, Harrison negotiated another treaty, this one with the Delaware, Wea, Kickapoo, and Potawatomi nations that allowed white settlement along the Wabash River.

This treaty, known as the Treaty of Fort Wayne, raised the ire of a Shawnee chief named Tecumseh. A charismatic leader, Tecumseh formed his own confederation of tribes to oppose the terms of the treaty. In 1811, Tecumseh, with 1100 men, visited Harrison at his home in Vincennes for a contentious meeting (not aided by the fact that neither men could speak directly to each other because neither spoke the other man’s language.) Tecumseh wanted the Treaty of Fort Wayne abrogated, or else he would side with the British. (The discussion between Harrison and Tecumseh also took longer because no one had a dictionary handy to find out what ‘abrogate’ meant.)

Tecumseh, along with his brother Tensketawa, ratcheted up the tension. Harrison and Tecumseh traded accusations and slurs against each other.

On November 6, 1811, Harrison decided to lead an expedition against Tecumseh’s forces at an encampment called Prophetstown (Tensketawa was also known as The Prophet.). This encampment was near the confluence of the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers. The forces led by Tensketawa made an attack on Harrison’s forces, but we were driven back, suffering heavy losses. Harrison received wide acclaim for this victory at what would be called the Battle of Tippecanoe. He also received criticism for not continuing the battle and capturing or killing Tecumseh and Tensketawa.

Harrison’s battle with Tecumseh became of the larger War of 1812. Harrison wanted to command the American forces in the Northwest, but that command was given to General William Hull. Hull proved himself to be such a capable general that he had to surrender Detroit to a troop of British and Canadian soldiers. Tecumseh also was on the British side. (The Army court martialed Hull for the unpardonable crime of losing to Canadians.)

With Hull disgraced, Harrison was given command. He started a march up through Northern Ohio. His forces split in two, and a group of Kentucky militia under the command of General James Winchester, went well beyond the lines of communication to find supplies at a town called Frenchtown (which is now Monroe, Michigan.)

While Winchester and his men were well fed, they were also sitting ducks for a large force leaving from Detroit under the command of British General Henry Procter. Tecumseh’s men were also part of the contingent.

Winchester’s troops were caught by surprise. Nearly all of them were killed in an engagement known as the Massacre of the River Raisin. Nearly 400 men were killed, with the rest taken prisoner. Those taken prisoner were almost all subsequently killed.

Avenging this defeat became of primary importance to the United States. Harrison was able to marshal his forces, augmented by more Kentucky militia eager to avenge the deaths of their comrades. Aiding this cause was a spectacular naval victory on Lake Erie by Commodore Oliver Perry. Procter now faced a nearly impossible situation in trying to resupply his troops. So, Procter ordered a retreat.

Harrison and his men pursued Procter, along with Tecumseh, and finally engaged them near the Canadian city of Moraviantown on October 5, 1813. The American forces routed the British and Indian forces in what would become known as the Battle of the Thames. During this battle, someone killed Tecumseh. No one knows for certain who it was, although Colonel Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky would take credit for it in public, and parlay that into election as Vice-President in 1837.

Despite the victory, Harrison still received criticism from the Secretary of War, John Armstrong, over spending on supplies. Harrison resigned his commission and Andrew Jackson was given the command of the Army in the West. The War of 1812 would last into 1814 and most of Washington, D.C. would be burned to the ground by British troops.

In the aftermath of the war, Harrison decided to leave the world of the military behind. He won election to the House of Representatives from Ohio in 1816, riding in on a wave of anti-incumbency. Prior to the 1816 election, Congress had voted to change its pay scale from eight dollars a day to $1500 for an entire two-year term. Since Congress met for about five months a year at the time, this was a big salary boost. The public outcry was enormous.

When the new Congress convened in 1817, the salary reverted back to a per diem, at nine dollars per day. Harrison supported this measure, although he did not do much else of note in Congress. In 1820, Harrison ran for Governor of Ohio, but lost. In 1824, he was chosen to the United States Senate by the Ohio Legislature.

Harrison was facing financial problems at the same time. He actually wanted a diplomatic job (which paid around $9000 per year plus expenses). He wanted to go to Mexico, but President John Quincy Adams gave that appointment to Joel Poinsett. (Yes, the flower guy.)

In 1828, Harrison was given the title of Minister to Colombia. He ventured by ship through the Caribbean to Maracaibo in Venezuela. Eventually, he took a 10-day trip by mule to the Colombian capital of Bogotá. There he met Cololmbian President Simon Bolivar.

Bolivar, who had been the Great Liberator, was now bordering on becoming the Great Dictator. Harrison sent dispatches back to Washington, warning of Bolivar’s increasing paranoia and restrictions of personal liberties.

But, Harrison was not in Colombia long. In 1829, Andrew Jackson became President and appointed a new minister to Colombia. Harrison returned home to Ohio.

For several years, Harrison had little to do. He managed his estate (which was not overly profitable). He welcomed back veterans of his various campaigns. He wrote books, and had books written about him.

In 1836, the Whig Party decided on a unique strategy for the Presidential election. Instead of nominating one candidate, the Whigs would nominate several candidates, each of whom was supposed to be very popular in one part of the country. The hope was then to split the electoral vote and send the election to the House. This plan had several flaws. First, the Democrats controlled the House and would win any election there. Second, it is hard enough to find one good presidential nominee, let alone two or three. In 1836, the Whigs nominated four candidates: Daniel Webster, Hugh White, Willie Mangum, and Harrison. Harrison was chosen because of his military background and his popularity in the West.

In the end, Martin Van Buren won the election with 170 electoral votes and over 50% of the popular vote. Harrison polled the second most votes of any of the Whigs and won 73 electoral votes. Van Buren’s running mate, Richard Johnson, did not get a majority of the electoral vote, sending his election to the Senate. (Virginia Democrats would not vote for Johnson because he had a black mistress. Johnson prevailed in the Senate by a 33 to 16 margin.)

Harrison did not have to do much after the 1836 election to become popular. In 1837, the nation went into a scary depression known as the Panic of 1837. Credit markets dried up and tens of thousands of people were left in poverty. Van Buren could not solve the economic mess (or did not have enough time for the economy to right itself) and he was going to be an easy target in the Election of 1840.

Henry Clay saw 1840 as being his chance to finally win the Presidency. But, it was not to be. Clay had made too many enemies. Harrison was the choice of the Whig Convention. The congenial general from Ohio would run for President despite being a relatively elderly 67 years old at the time.

The presidential campaign of 1840 was groundbreaking. The campaign would not be about the issues, but about personalities. Van Buren was portrayed as an out of touch aristocrat. Harrison was the hard working military hero.

When a Democratic newspaper printed that “Harrison would like to retire to his log cabin and drink hard cider and contemplate moral philosophy,” the Whigs turned the dig into a campaign slogan. Harrison, along with running mate John Tyler, adopted the “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” as a theme for the campaign. In 1840, it was hip to be a country bumpkin. (Not that Harrison was actually born in a log cabin or lived in one.)

The Whigs also adopted a campaign slogan of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” to emphasize Harrison’s military background. A large paper ball was rolled through various cities after Whig candidates won local elections. The idea was “to get the ball rolling for Harrison!” After the victory, the names of the winning candidates would be written on the ball.

Not many people knew which issues Harrison campaigned on. They just liked him, and he seemed better than Van Buren.

Harrison believed in a national bank, the supremacy of Congress to the President (which meant almost no vetoes), Federal funding of internal improvements, reform of the spoils system, and a promise to serve one term.

When Harrison got to Washington, he was greeted as a hero. He was also besieged by job seekers. He picked a Cabinet and planned to have all major decisions ratified by its members. The stress of the transition quickly began to wear Harrison down.

Hundreds of people would see Harrison each day, begging for a job. The Whigs wanted to get rid of all the Democrats in office. Harrison wanted to take a more restrained approach. But, after eight years of Jackson and four years of Van Buren, the Whigs wanted their share of Federal jobs.

Harrison was inaugurated on March 4, 1841 on a cold and wet day in Washington. He gave the longest inaugural address in history, over 8,000 words, and that was after Daniel Webster heavily edited it. With the poor weather and the long speech, many of the estimated 50,000 in attendance stopped paying attention and left.

History books tell us that Harrison picked up a cold during his inaugural address because of the poor weather. However, most doctors would tell you that cold weather itself will not make you sick. But, a 68-year old man, under a high amount of stress, living among many unfamiliar people in crowded conditions, is a good candidate to pick up a virus from someone.

Harrison’s cold turned into pneumonia. And, even today, you do not want to get that. His health quickly deteriorated. On April 4, 1841, William Henry Harrison became the first President to die in office. William Henry Harrison went from President to historical footnote.

Other stuff: Harrison’s birthplace, the Berkeley Plantation is available for visits and run by a private foundation. William Henry Harrison was laid to rest in a tomb in North Bend, Ohio. The tomb is maintained by the Ohio Historical Society. Harrison’s estate in Vincennes, Indiana was called Grouseland, and it is available for visits. Tippecanoe Battlefield Park is a National Historic Landmark, although it is maintained by the state of Indiana.

Tecumseh’s final resting place is unknown. He does have a line of air conditioners named after him. And noted Civil War general William Sherman has the middle name of Tecumseh.

The battlefield for River Raisin was designated as a National Battlefield Park on March 30, 2009.

William Henry Harrison’s grandson, Benjamin, would become President in 1889. Benjamin was the son of John Scott Harrison, who served in the House of Representatives for Ohio. Harrison’s brother, Carter Bassett Harrison, was a member of the House for Virginia. Harrison’s great-great-grandson, also named William Henry Harrison, represented Wyoming in the House.